“It’s quite a trippy movie and I have quite a trippy brain.” This musing from Icelandic singer/songwriter Emilíana Torrini gives you a pretty good insight into what to expect from her newly-released film The Extraordinary Miss Flower.
The film is about the remarkable life of Geraldine Flower, the mother of London-based publicist Zoe Flower, who is the wife of Simon Byrt, a music producer and songwriter and Emilíana’s musical partner. When Geraldine, who was raised in Australia, passed away, Zoe discovered an old suitcase full of wonderful letters from her mother’s lovers. She shared this with Emilíana which started the Icelandic artist’s creative journey of an album of songs and eventually the film.
The Extraordinary Miss Flower is dreamy and fantastical – nothing like your standard biopic and certainly not a documentary. It’s more like an extra-long music video, featuring Emilíana and her band performing songs from the album, mixed with dance sequences and a selection of dramatised scenes. Caroline Catz plays Geraldine alongside Emilíana, as herself.
Produced by Zoe, the film was directed by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the pair behind the 2014 Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth. The Extraordinary Miss Flower features Nick Cave (giving a short reading to camera) along with Richard Ayoade, Alice Lowe and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who provides a voiceover.
The Extraordinary Miss Flower doesn’t tell a complete or linear story, so after a few minutes of watching you realise not to try to work out a clear plot line. As such, the film asks far more questions than it answers. This is something that Emilíana is clearly pleased with.
“It’s a theatrical expression of the story. It leaves a lot of questions open that we didn’t have the answers for. It’s much more elusive,” explains Emilíana. “What I would really like people to get from the film is an awakening of something and asking questions of yourself.
“When we showed the film the first time, what I really loved was people coming and saying ‘oh it made me think about my boyfriends and lovers and how maybe I treated them’. A lot of the younger viewers were thinking ‘who are my parents now – I want to ask my parents questions’. Maybe the film can change you, like it changed me.”
And Emilíana is clearly not overstating it when she talks about the change she went through after finding the letters, which are truly poetic, erotic and in some cases quite OTT expressions of love for Geraldine.
“I started to immerse myself in the letters – for me it became a spy story and free spirit story,” says Emilíana. “And there was my life parallel to hers. Her story was really affecting my life and waking me up. I think it was waking me up in my life.”
“I remember when Zoe handed me the letter that is now the song ‘Miss Flower.’ I’m reading it and it’s so funny, witty and sexy, but in this kind of reserved, English way. But it’s also wild in an Australian way.”
Emilíana discussed writing Miss Flower with Zoe and Simon, which then turned into recording the full Miss Flower album – the artist’s first in 10 years. Emilíana released her first album ‘Love in the Time of Science’ back in 1999, and has worked with artists including Kylie Minogue, Thievery Corporation and Paul Oakenfold.
Emilíana lived in Geraldine’s flat during the recording of the album, which is above Zoe and Simon’s flat and recording studio. “I was completely immersed in her life and the neighbourhood. There is a song called Black Lion Lane – I was walking down Black Lion Lane and going to the river and I could see her constantly in front of me, or skipping down the road or dancing.”
Emilíana was introduced to filmmakers Iain Jane at the start of making the album and she says they were really taken with the story and keen to turn it into a movie. The album took three years to make and work on the film started directly after.
“We had two days to shoot the movie,” reveals Emilíana. “I thought this was great as I didn’t know what I was going into. What I was worried about was that the band hadn’t got together to rehearse, so we had never played the music together.
“We didn’t have the time for multiple takes. I was told to go for my first scene and I was like ‘yes, ok’ but I was completely mortified as I’d never acted. I wanted an actor to help me out in the weeks before. It’s a craft – how do I even sound normal or natural?”
Luckily for Emilíana, Caroline Catz took her under her wing throughout the shoot: “Caroline was just unbelievable. She really, really helped me out. And we got on so well together. I stood behind the camera and said ‘I’ll do everything you do’. So I was just singing into the camera and looking at her. And that’s how it was.”
And, of course, we mustn’t forget Nick Cave’s cameo in the film – an appearance that was only confirmed right at the end of making the film.
“Nick has been a big hero of mine since I was really young,” admits Emilíana. “I used to live in Brighton and I would go to this coffee shop and I would see him. He would come in and have a coffee, with his array of outfits.
My friends would say why don’t you just talk to him. But I had this unbelievably beautiful image – I’m just sitting there and a hero of mine walks in and orders a coffee and I never wanted to ruin that vision. So the first time we saw the clip of him in the movie, we were just screaming, we were like children. It was just such a joyous thing.”
The Extraordinary Miss Flower opens in cinemas on Friday 9th May.
Written by: Tim Collison, Content Creator at Nordic Watchlist
